Closure
by cmere2
Summary: I’ve watched you for so long, you know." Harry reflects after the war. Slashy but not too slashy HarryDraco. One-shot.


**A/N: Sorry for those who have seen this posted before, I got kicked off again, details in my profile, please enjoy and please review!**

**Rated PG-13 for language, slashiness, and depressingness.**

I've watched you for so long, you know.

That's all either of us has done, isn't it? Watch each other? Learn what we like and what we hate and what makes us pissed off? It's all I've done, anyways. Maybe you haven't.

You and your stupid insults and your stupid arrogance and your stupid pride. I remember thinking that you were the biggest arse I had ever met. Not only that, but you were a coward. You were too scared to do anything on your own. Always had to have Daddy telling you what to do. Maybe I shouldn't judge, though. I don't know what it's like to have a daddy always telling me what to do. Maybe I wouldn't go against him either, no matter what I believed. I guess I'll never know.

I should've known you weren't strong enough. I should've known that you always gave up so easily. You did it with everything else; settled for mediocre friends while you were so intelligent, settled for losing at Quidditch to me while you were so experienced, settled for sneering insults when you could've had intelligent conversation.

I don't know where I'm going with this, really. I guess I'm just remembering all the ways you could have been. All the ways we could have been. I can't pinpoint the exact moment when I stopped watching you to figure out what makes you mad and began watching you for pleasure. It must've been fifth year. That was when I started seeing you, I think. The real you. The boy behind the mask. You didn't let him show very often, but sometimes I could see a flicker of fear, a moment of concern, just a second of uncertainty. It was always in your eyes, never your face. Your face remained the same impassive wall it had always been. But your eyes said things sometimes when you, or your face, or your body language didn't. They were beautiful things and I began to realize I wanted to listen, I wanted to see, I wanted you to be real. Because the smirking school boy wasn't real. None of it was real in the end, I guess.

You never changed towards me, all seven years in school. You always hated me, always insulted me and my friends, pretending you were so much better. I figured out sometime that you were jealous of me all along. You were rich and pureblooded; that was about it. I was rich, famous, the epitome of good. You had Crabbe and Goyle; I had Ron and Hermione, better friends than those two lumps would have even been able to imagine. And you hated it. You hated me because you thought I had it better than you. Surely you saw I was jealous of you, too? You were so confident, so self-assured. Even if it was a farce, I could never do that. I always wore my heart on my sleeve, as Snape told me. I wanted your ability to stay cool and stay collected, even when things were hell. Even when your father went into Azkaban, you didn't change. You were static. You were the one thing I could depend on to always be the same. Even though it wasn't a good same, you were the same, and I needed something like that in my life. I'm grateful that you were always there. Just there. And always the same.

Don't you understand that I wanted you? I needed you. Static as you were, I wanted you to change for me. Selfish, really. You had no reason to change. This was what you always knew, and wanting you to change for me was stupid. You didn't even know how I felt, but I guess I was holding out hope that you would realize what you were doing. But that it could only end one way. That was the last way I wanted it to end, but it was inevitable, wasn't it? With us being what we were? We never could have gotten along. I know that now. I was foolish before, though. I had this stupid, stupid hope that you would see me the way I began to see you and realize that we were more than enemies, more than squabbling schoolchildren, more than a Gryffindor and a Slytherin. I wanted it so bad.

I don't think I loved you. How could I love someone so callous, so cruel, so immature? I could list your faults forever. Everything I hated about you. I'm sure you could have done the same. That's just how we were, wasn't it? That's always how we were.

Look at me, babbling incessantly about how much we hated each other. That's not what this is supposed to be about. It's supposed to be about how I needed you and you didn't need me. And – what was that word Hermione used? Right. Closure. Okay. I think seventh year is a good place to start. The war was in full force by then. Pretty much everyone in the school had chosen a side. Dumbledore didn't kick any of the young Death-Eaters-In-Training out, though. Even though it was obvious that some people were going to join Voldemort the second school ended. You and Blaise. Crabbe and Goyle. Pansy and Millicent. Your whole little crowd. You all walked around in a pack, always together. I guess we did too, though. Strength is in numbers, no matter what side you're on.

Sometimes I saw you alone. Sitting by yourself in the Great Hall before mealtimes or in the library after class. I wondered what you were thinking about, what you were doing by yourself. That was what gave me hope, I think. I hoped that you were slowly coming to the realization that these people weren't friends. They were just mindless little pawns in Voldemort's sick game. I knew you were more intelligent than that. How could I not know, watching you all those years? I hoped Snape would influence you. I hoped _I_ would. A fool's hope. I had no more influence on you than a first year Hufflepuff. I was scum to you. It hurts to say it, but I know it's true. No use denying it now. Sure, you were jealous of me. Sure, you loved to taunt me. But you didn't need me to feel complete, like I did with you.

You started getting owls. Weekly, then daily. I knew they were from your father. I think everyone did. But I was the only one who noticed how you paled slightly and loosened your collar when they came, how your eyes gave an unmistakable flash of fear. That gave me hope too. Because why would you listen to, why would you follow someone who you were afraid of? Why would you love someone who hurt you? It didn't make sense to me, then. But I understand now, I think. Your feeling of family obligation and need to prove yourself. I wonder if I had told you what I thought, if things would have turned out differently. If I had told you that yes, there was someone who thought you could be something more, who could do more, who could fight for something you actually believed in, not something your father passed on to you. Probably not. But I can still wonder.

I guess deep down I was hoping you were looking for something more. I wanted you to want more. But you didn't. Your future was set in stone and you knew it. I doubt anything could have changed it. I thought maybe after your father died, halfway through seventh year, you would see there was more. But if anything, it just made you more determined. To do it for him, to prove yourself to him, even after his death. Especially after his death. I hated that you wouldn't deviate from anything you were used to. You wouldn't give anything a chance. God, I remember screaming in my room in frustration because you were so certain of _everything_. You just didn't get it, that there was more out there than what you knew.

There were little battles going on all year. Murders. Disappearances. The castle mourned for weeks when Hannah Abbott disappeared. No one seemed to know where she went, except everyone _knew_. She wasn't the only one who didn't come back after a Hogsmeade weekend. Soon we weren't even allowed to leave the castle. And then it happened. One month before our NEWTs. Dinnertime. The Death Eaters infiltrated Hogwarts.

It was pure and utter chaos. No one knew what was going on, where to go, what to do. You didn't even have the decency to look surprised when it happened. You just smiled calmly at Pansy and got up with your friends. Over half the Slytherin table joined the Death Eaters on the battleground. You were one of them, shirt sleeves rolled up, proudly displaying your Dark Mark. God, it made me sick to see it, that animalistic mark marring your smooth white skin. I don't know why I was surprised, but I was. Maybe because I knew you were smarter, I knew you were better, I knew you had the chance to live, to really live. But you chose the easy path, the path laid out for you since birth, and I felt so nauseated, seeing you out there, throwing curses and unforgivables at your fellow students, all with that placid smile, that it _hurt_, it physically fucking hurt me to see you, Draco.

Well, I guess you know the rest. I went out there and Voldemort tried to kill me and it rebounded upon him _again_. But this time he was gone for good, and everyone knew it. Everyone came up to me and congratulated me for fulfilling my post, what I was supposed to do, what was prophesied about me. I didn't do anything, though. I just stood there and survived again. I don't think I'll ever know why.

Through the crowd I saw you being taken away. Your hair fell into your face as the magical handcuffs were placed around your wrists and you just looked at me. Your eyes were dead. And you just looked at me as you were lead away to Azkaban with all the other Death Eaters that had survived and not gotten away. Seeing you completely void of all emotion was what hurt the most. You had stopped caring about your life. You had lost control of everything, you had lost everything, and you didn't even care. I was so angry at you for doing this to me, for making me think you were real when all along you were an empty shell. Why did you have to give me that false hope? Those moments when I thought I saw the boy behind the mask? Was it all to taunt me? God, I hope it was, because it would _kill_ me if I thought you had a chance to truly be good and gave it all up. It is killing me, I think.

I haven't been the same since. I go about my life but I don't do it for anything anymore. What is there to do? Voldemort is gone and so are you. My friends are important to me but you were the only one who could get to me, who got under my skin and stayed there until you infested yourself in me and became a part of me. Hermione told me you got sentenced for the Dementor's Kiss. I wasn't surprised. I asked her why they thought that would be a punishment, because you had no soul already. She kissed me on the head and left.

God dammit Draco, don't you get it? I wish you were dead. I'd rather have you dead than what you are now, out there, unable to care, unable to feel, unable to want anything in this life. You exist but you aren't there and there is no chance of you coming back. I wish you were dead. Why can't you just be fucking dead? This stupid closure would be so much easier if you were. Instead I know you are sitting there in Azkaban with your soulless eyes staring out just like they did at me and I have to sit here knowing I can't help you and I never did anything to help you and nothing will ever be able to help you again. I can't keep thinking like this, I can't keep imagining you and what could have been if everything had turned out the way I wanted, I am so sick of this and I just want it to go away, Draco, I need it to go away. I need you to stop haunting me. I hate this I hate you I hate you I hate you. You will never leave me alone, will you? I will remain like this for the rest of my life. You fucking bastard. I hate you I want you I need you I love you and I will never be able to let this go.


End file.
